There is a saying that things come in threes and for Ireland today it was their third heart wrenching narrow loss to a world class side in just over two weeks.

Despite scoring their highest ODI total which at 359, was a full 28 runs better than their previous record, they still lost by the very barest of margins.

Debutant Graham Hume could not get the bat on Blair Tickner’s final delivery, and the bye taken to the wicketkeeper was just not enough.

Although it was far from a full house the decent sized crowd, led by the members of the Fionn Hand Appreciation Society, vociferously roared on the Ireland side as they edged closer to what would have been an historic first win against New Zealand.

Ireland had matched their opponents score throughout the run chase and at the thirty over mark were ten runs ahead with one more wicket in hand.

That Ireland got so close was primarily the result of a superb stand of 179 between Paul Stirling and Harry Tector which was Ireland’s highest for the third wicket in ODI’s and saw both men getting to a century.

Stirling reached his off 91 balls while his young teammate took just five deliveries more. When they were finally dismissed, they had hit a combined 21 fours and 10 sixes.

Andy McBrine, Gareth Delany, and George Dockrell all got into the 20’s at better than a run-a-ball as they kept attacking and refused to accept that the task was beyond them.

In this series the 3-0 score line is a travesty as the home side deserved at least one win. After the match the new Ireland Head Coach, Heinrich Malan, came over to talk to the three members of the written media present and while he did not hide his disappointment, he was also incredibly pleased and proud of his charges for their performances over the past weeks.

His educated positivity was genuinely impressive and refreshing as he did not hide behind the usual modern cliched phrases such as “we will take learnings from this.”

It cannot be a coincidence that in the few weeks of his tenure Ireland have had their closest ever results against India and New Zealand, both in the upper echelons of white ball cricket, and got their highest run chase in T20I’s and their highest ODI total.

In this series alone they have scored 84 fours and 26 maximums. Comparing the number of balls that reached or cleared the boundary in this series to the other six series in the World Super League starkly demonstrates the massive change in Ireland’s intent.

While the quality of the wickets are not totally comparable nevertheless it is fair to make valid comparisons about Ireland’s positive approach.

In the first series of the league against England in Southampton, Ireland’s 2-1 defeat contained 60 fours and 8 sixes. No batsman scored at a rate of 100+. Against Afghanistan, which resulted in a 3-0 defeat, there were 53 fours and 15 sixes with again no one better than a run a ball. In the series against the Netherlands which Ireland lost 2-1, they only managed 47 fours and not one single six and again nobody had a S/R of 100.

Against South Africa which finished 1-1, it improved to 66 fours and 12 sixes, with three players better than a S/R of 100+. While in the Zimbabwe series which also finished 1-1, it was 53 fours and 11 sixes with again three players better than a S/R of 100+. Against West Indies which Ireland won 2-1, Ireland scored 56 fours and 13 sixes with again three players better than a S/R of 100+.

Five players had a S/R of 100+ against New Zealand. Therefore, Ireland got 18 more fours in this series than they did in either of the other six series and crucially they cleared the boundary this week almost twice as often as in any other series. They also hit more sixes in the current series than the other two home series against South Africa and Zimbabwe combined.

Ireland scored 492 in fours and sixes this week which is 84 runs more than the next best against Afghanistan and 152 more than South Africa in third place. On top of that they scored their highest number of sixes in a T20I innings in the recent match against India.

Playing like this has the potential to change the course of Ireland cricket’s future.

This is not blind slogging. It is calculated attacking cricket strokes. Some of the boundaries the two centurions scored today were as classic as any in the history of white ball cricket. This positive strategy will not always work and there are going to be occasional bad days but that is the nature of the limited over formats.

The last time Ireland played with such panache they had a team of seasoned professionals honed and hardened in county cricket. The current generation do not have that distinct advantage but if they continue their current rate of progress then several of the players will find themselves in demand from the leading franchise leagues around the world.

Of course, it is still a work in progress and the bowling still needs a lot of work, particularly at the death and they need to develop attacking rather than defensive spin bowling. There will finally be a dedicated spin coach, Nathan Hauritz, arriving in August and that should make a noticeable difference.

It is essential that there is a coherent programme of Wolves matches to continue to develop the skills of those outside of the current senior squads. A target of developing a squad of something in the region of forty players should be the ambition and every player in that forty is capable of stepping in as required.

Today saw the debut of Hume who originally arrived in Ireland as a professional with Coleraine and stayed to become eligible for his adopted country. He could not have imagined at the start of the day that he would have faced the last ball of the match one blow away from history.

Even though they were missing several senior players from their squad, New Zealand are still a formidable side, especially with the bat, as Michael Bracewell and Martin Guptill amply demonstrated.

Although Guptill also scored a fine hundred today, arguably his most crucial contribution was the stunning catch he grasped to dismiss Gareth Delany, who was going through the gears and another half an hour of him in this mode and Ireland would surely have crossed the finish line.

That is the end of the scheduled ODI’s for this year and the focus is entirely on the T20I World Cup in Australia in October.

Monday in Stormont sees the first of ten matches in the build up to the Tournament. If Ireland continue as they have played for the past few weeks, then the spectators will be in for a treat.